Teuns and the other two are pushing hard because they realize their period of grace is small, and the first thing the deserters will do would be to tell the Arabs about the Sabre of Dutra. The Arabs, in turn, will not wait for even a second to start the chase.
When the moon rises just after midnight, they realize that they cannot push the horses any further in this manner. They can feel the animals are weakening and therefore break off into a short trot.
“We will never be able to outrun the Arabs in this manner,” Jack Ritchie complains.
“It will also not be very clever to race these animals to their deaths,” Teuns finds, “or do you feel up to it to walk out from under the Arab’s noses?”
“They must have lingered for a while at the deserters, and in the last couple of hours, we have push
